Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A request is not a test

If I’m doing the morning routine with
the kids, I bring Jennifer a cup of tea. I’m already making me coffee,
we have a Keurig thingy so it only takes me a minute to make her
something while I’m making my own. She always says thank you and
actively enjoys the Act of Service. She also knows that all she needs to
do once is say, “Where’s my tea?” in a snarky tone and she’ll get a
whithering look and a big cup of make-your-own-fucking-tea.

Something to watch is whether or not
small acts of service are also returned to you. I do nice things for
Jennifer, but she also does many nice things back to me. For which I
also say thank you.

If it’s all a one way flow of your
energy into your partner… even if they are being nice and appreciative
about it… that just means you’re doing everything they want for nothing
but praise. Which is simply talk and not action. If they are performing actions for other people though… hmmm.

The fiery fervor of the convert often leads to overreaction, in Game as in religion or the conquest of an addiction. For many men, the discovery of Game causes them to start seeing negative female behavior in everything, sometimes when it isn't even there. For example, when Spacebunny is comfortably ensconced in front of the television and asks me if I'll pour her a glass of wine when I'm in the kitchen making myself a late night coffee, I don't react as if she's angrily demanding that I throw myself down into a puddle so she can walk over my back without getting her shoes wet. Her request is a perfectly reasonable one and I am perfectly happy to grant it.

A reasonable rule of thumb is this: If a woman is making a request of a man and it is the sort of request that you would normally grant if one of your close male friends was making it, it is not a test and should not be treated like one. On the other hand, if a woman makes an uncivil demand of you, it may or may not be a test, but in either case, it is best treated with contempt and ignored.

The fact is that most women know, from a very early age, how to make themselves difficult to resist when they want something. They flutter their eyelashes, make their eyes big, raise their voices, and say PLEEEEESE. So, if a woman can't even bother to be civil, if she can't even bother to ask for something, she wants, that is a pretty reliable sign that something has gone awry in the relationship.

I agree. Mrs. Ironwood and I have a kind of coffee ritual which I will explore in detail in a future post. But short version is like this:

Every morning I get up and get the kids up and begin the day by opening Stately Ironwood Manor, and Mrs. I gets up and starts her routine. If she's been "good" lately, a cup of coffee appears next to her elbow on the bathroom counter. If she hasn't been particularly "good" lately, then no coffee, kind of like Athol & Jennifer (Athennifer? Jenathol?). If she has to ask for coffee, she knows I'm not completely content. I'll grudgingly get her the coffee the first day. Not the second. If I don't even make coffee, she knows I'm pissed.

Variations: Coffee in a "#1 Wife" tacky mug we got from South of the Border means she was extra, extra good (and probably a little sore). Highest honors.

Coffee in a mug bearing her mother's name which we inherited after her mom's second divorce means she has been especially bitchy and/or is reminding me of the parts of my mother-in-law I (and she) don't particularly like. She usually gives me a guilty glance, says "point taken", and deals accordingly. Or she bitches out. Either way, the coffee ritual has become an important and subtle point of subtextual communication in our relationship.

I had a girlfriend who whenever she wanted something, would say, "PLEEEEEZE." I started making her say, "Pretty please with sugar on top" and she did that. And darn if I did't always give in, because she did it in such a funny way.

Give your woman 2/3 of everything she gives you. For every three calls or texts, give her two back. Three declarations of love earn two in return. Three gifts; two nights out. Give her two displays of affection and stop until she has answered with three more. When she speaks, you reply with fewer words. When she emotes, you emote less. The idea behind the golden ratio is twofold — it establishes your greater value by making her chase you, and it demonstrates that you have the self-restraint to avoid getting swept up in her personal dramas. Refraining from reciprocating everything she does for you in equal measure instills in her the proper attitude of belief in your higher status. In her deepest loins it is what she truly wants.

Especially: if she starts making bitchy pre-sex demands like "only if you get me a snack first", nix that ASAP. Tell her to ring the servant boy. If she refuses sex, shrug and go have yourself a snack. She will stew awhile, or come and pitch some drama fit. Regard her with raised Spock eyebrow: "Fascinating...". The morning sex will be worth it.

I could care less about watching for every jot and tittle of a mistake. The thing I continue to return here for is the internal strength of character. That's what I'm looking for and I appreciate that Vox is crystal in this regard: it's not about silly pride. In fact, it seems to me that the whole point here is to recognize the existence of stupid pride in both sexes and determine the best method to deal with those issues without pride-based emoting.

A friend of mine competes in video games in order to exact his revenge and dominance over other players. I compete against myself. That's why I'm here. I've crunched all the data of my past and I see the failings. I can see how often I blamed others (especially women in my life) when what I see now from those crunched numbers called memory is that often times I lost sight of the role God intended me to cultivate.

If God intended me to maintain the state of being a man and I have not (and many times--too many times--I have not) then at some point I either continue utilizing wrongheaded thinking and blame others or I begin to compete with myself in order to usurp the role of being a man in my life and impose my will over my mind---not someone else's.

Beneath the surface of The Game (as Vox explains so well, so often) is a code of ethics and honor that can lead a male to become a man in a world that wants men but can't seem to remember why. And since I'm always harping in daily life about there not being enough real men, I figure it's about time I owned up to my role as God deems fit.

A reasonable rule of thumb is this: If a woman is making a request of a man and it is the sort of request that you would normally grant if one of your close male friends was making it, it is not a test and should not be treated like one.

I disagree. An ALPHA tends to be an Alpha, and a BETA tends to be a Delta or Gamma. That means that a lot of guys who are pushovers when it comes to women are going to be pushovers when it comes to their male friends.

I say this because I've been there.

It sort of makes sense from a theoretical perspective (hopefully no one is trying to learn application of Game here), but it still doesn't work as a rule of thumb.

That means that a lot of guys who are pushovers when it comes to women are going to be pushovers when it comes to their male friends.

I say this because I've been there.

My "been there" was just the opposite. In my younger day, I was a horrible beta when it came to women, but never let guys push me around.

This followed from my naive acceptance of my mom (and other female relative) advice that "women want a nice guy". Obviously this advice didn't apply to other guys - there was no obligation or incentive to be nice to them.

I'm smacking my forehead remembering my total failure to notice how turned on my female classmates obviously were after I beat the crap out of some guy on the schoolbus.

I agree men who have recently learned game tend to see negativity and sh*t tests when they aren't there. I did,and have adjusted.Alex Jones was talking about game on his show. The manosphere influence is getting bigger.

Eh, Maybe so, girls. Can't hit 'em out of the park all the time. On re-reading, ouch it does look like something Ian would write. Actual story was a little different, but too many details, including a tough family time, of which Roissy knows not.

I still remember the day my morning coffee's stopped happening. But my beta kept doing all the sweet little things for her without question.

I was in marriage counseling 4 months later.

The ratio, while im not a strong adherent to the ratio as an absolute.. if it is a means to keep beta's from giving of themselves at well over a 1:1 ratio into supplicating doormat destiny, i'm all for it.

@Sarahsdaughter: It might sound silly . . . but we've been together for over 20 years and I get laid like linoleum. What's "passive-aggressive" to some of y'all is what I tend to call "subtle subtext". It's the quiet sort of near-telepathic communication that develops between a close couple over the years, based on thousands of subtle cues we've learned from each other. And there is a decided element of behavioral conditioning -- rewarding good behavior with a well-made cup of Siddamo is much cheaper than jewelry, and far more repeatable. Some of y'all might have to talk everything to death, but if I can make a gesture or a symbol stand for a half-hour of relationship discussion, I'm lazy enough to do it.

Besides, if I let her make/prepare my coffee, it would suck. I worked in Specialty Coffee for 5 years, and I'm not about to concede good coffee and our "silly" rituals for the sake of my manly pride. Talk about "Gamma".

And while I, too, appreciate the Golden Ratio's power in Single Game, I would also add that the Married version is going to look a little different, as the value exchange is set within a much larger context. Captain and First Officer both have a greater responsibility than a simple back-and-forth interpersonal exchange, especially when there are little crew members involved. That skews just how you can value such things, and requires both imagination and patience, as well as a fair amount of pure Alpha assertiveness, to change your Game up when you get married. If you don't think your Game can survive that kind of challenge . . . stay single.

"For many men, the discovery of Game causes them to start seeing negative female behavior in everything, sometimes when it isn't even there."This. I have noticed this A LOT by a lot of the guys who read Game. I see girls commenting on here, and they could be completely agreeing with your blog, and there will always be some guy or other who tears them apart completely, finding flaws that aren't even there. "You're just a female; you don't know what you're talking about" is what I see a lot. They're gammas who think they know everything. I'm a huge follower of Alpha Game, and it was like a God send when I found it -- I even had my own little rough system that was similar (but much more primitive and less in depth) to the sexual hierarchy. But take my brother, for example. Everything I say and every opinion I have is invalid, wrong, based on pure emotion, and should be overlooked because I'm female. He's one of those who fantasizes that he's a sigma when he's really not. I totally agree that guys should have authority over women, but it pisses me off, the way some of these guys act. Gammas make me want to punch them in the face.

The fiery fervor of the convert often leads to overreaction...For many men, the discovery of Game causes them to start seeing negative female behavior in everything, sometimes when it isn't even there.

and then a comment says:

An ALPHA tends to be an Alpha, and a BETA tends to be a Delta or Gamma....I say this because I've been there.

It may seem beyond understanding But the girl who throws in full force at the game, gets the ring and can wear white. She won it. Mrs keeps me on the porch. Son's openly appreciate the effort because they are contending with their own growing pains.

I think that fiery overreaction that causes a man to see negative behaviour in everything a woman does it simplay a natural occurance on the path to developing inner game. It's not an indicator of beta/gamma or anything like that, it's just a sign that the person hasn't yet learned to discern the indicators that differentiate between the negative female behaviours and the ones that are not.

One must understand that this is a process, and that a lot of bad programming society has instilled in men must be unlearned, and that deprogramming process is violent and chaotic within one's mind. Of course, some are better and quicker to adapt to it than others as well.

As much as I hate using psychology references, the "red pill" causes the man to go through stages similar to that worn-out Kubler-Ross grief model. Anger's probably the biggest and most obvious one manifested in a man as he now sees the "truth" behind all those years of subtle manipulations and hypergamous behaviours of women he's interacted with in life. Understandably, he's going to be a bit pissed off and until he comes to terms with it (acceptance) and accepts that it was part of his "old" self, any behaviour that even remotely looks manipulative is going to rub sand in a wound that is not completely healed.

Of course, once he does accept it and moves on, it's going to show, he'll be less bitter, and the transition to the stage when Game truly has a positive effect on his life will be reached.

The real story here is not what you read, but why you read it in the first place, and react to it as you do. It's like complaining about someone being an attention-whoring narcissist without examining why you are fixated on them at all.

Internet marketers have proven how stupid we are, since they have used marketing techniques to control the flow of information to the point where we treat their marketing hype as the truth. What you are referencing here is the result of a decade of internet marketing designed to push ONE school of thought on the public. That school now dominates because the audience is so media-obsessed that it has been TOLD that this is how people think.

In my writing, which didn't achieve critical mass, I have shown several examples where "supplicatioN" pays off huge. My most notable example came when I was sixteen, and a female friend (oh now! The "friend zone") asked me to get her some tickets to see Jackson Browne at Madison Square Garden. I violated every principle the internet marketers say shouldn't be violated, and went a mile out of my way (on saktes) to pick them up (she paid for the tickets). A month later, Bruce Springsteen makes a suprrise appearance on stage, and I'm this girl's hero.

As for what you write, if you're in a relationship, you are NOT running "game" unless you are into dominance/submnission. Indeed, in most relationships, the "fatal mistake" (for one party) is entering it, while the other party "hits the jackpot."

One need only look at how women choose men to see that all that goes on in relationships is that women use sex to "pluck men off the success ladder." It's transactional and conditional, not at all what we would call love.